Musings of a fantasy author in a wibbly wobbly world.

Mr Ramji was the open source czar at Redmond...The most dangerous job in Redmond? I wonder if Mr Ramji had someone test the food from the Redmond canteen before he ate it?.....

Microsoft is alleged to be launching a foundation to support to Open Source software and its ethos.

The interim president is non other than Sam Ramji, who recently announced he was leaving Microsoft and his position of open source czar at Redmond.

So now we look at another member of this “foundation” who has been appointed, Mr De Icazza, who recently visited this blog to answer questions on MONO and several (IMO) worrying “attractions” he had to Microsoft. Mr De Icazza (as always) does not fudge his opinion and is always quite direct in his posts. Over on his blog HERE he has a few words to say about his new appointment.

There are still many things that I would like to see Microsoft do, and many things that I believe Microsoft has to change to become a full member of the open source community, but it is encouraging to me to see Microsoft evolve. I hope that the CodePlex foundation will help us continue to build bridges between our communities.

Encouraging? Mr De Icazza, please for a minute think about what you are saying. Microsoft (like any company) is not on some crusade to make the IT world better for everyone, UNLESS there is something in it for them. (IMO)

Its not rocket science and that isn’t an attack at Microsoft per say. If ANY company is to survive it needs to return a profit, Microsoft is no different to any other company and Microsoft (IMO) will only do something if it is of benefit to them (either directly or indirectly)

I am glad that I was asked to be part of the board of directors of the foundation. And to work together with some great advisory board.

To be fair though, with all the alleged pro Microsoft comments he has made (even forgetting about MONO) how could Microsoft choose anyone else?

For me the Codeplex Foundation is typical of Microsoft arrogance. In my opinion they look at something and say “Yeah great idea, we like that…Now follow us, we will tell you how to do it better…it’ll be great…”

To look at the “mission statement” if you will, it says:

a non-profit foundation formed with the mission of enabling the exchange of code and understanding among software companies and open source communities, launched today

I wonder how difficult it is for Microsoft to say the words “non-profit”?

To be fair to Sam Ramji (the interim president), people around the net have said very positive things about him and whilst he is only an interim president, you have to give him credit for previously holding what I would think would be the most difficult job in a proprietary firm. I wonder if when he was at the Microsoft canteen he had a food taster incase of poison?😉

From the Codeplex site, Microsoft have this to say:

The CodePlex Foundation will complement existing open source foundations and organizations, providing a forum in which best practices and shared understanding can be established by a broad group of participants, both software companies and open source communities. Initial funding for the Foundation comes from Microsoft Corporation.

Lets all take a minute of silence in thanks to the mighty Microsoft. Done that? Now ask the question “Whats in it for them?”

Mr Ramji says:

We plan to gather best practices for how software companies that have worked with, and work on, open source projects can do so optimally

and my question to him would be: Where do software patents fit into this “vision”?

In the meantime Microsoft is looking for a new open source person to fill the space left by Mr Ramji.

My money is on Mr De Icazza – he has sure earned it (IMO).

From the Codeplex site the members of this foundation are as follows:

Microsoft has a great new idea: "The Codeplex Foundation" and its got many people to tell you why its great and how things should be done....God bless Microsoft!...Back in the real world, I am wondering, how many more schemes is Microsoft going to have and when is Redmond going to get the message?

9 thoughts on “Codeplex Foundation – Microsoft loves FOSS?”

Quote:
“a non-profit foundation formed with the mission of enabling the exchange of code and understanding among software companies and open source communities, launched today”

I wonder how difficult it is for Microsoft to say the words “non-profit”?
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In my opinion, you are on the right trail here, its always about the money with M$. What I think “non-profit” here means, is the the “foundation” does not have a product to sell, because it is another marketing front (shill) for M$. Worse, I bet M$ is using this “non-profit” status to cheat us United States taxpayers by not paying their fair share of corporate taxes. In short, it may also be another tax scam to let us citizens pay their FUD campaign against real open source. M$ is famous for naming things backward, DRM Digital Rights Management, who’s rights? Same way with this open source foundation, its real purpose is most likely to attack the GPL and GNU/Linux.

And Mr De Icazza, he has done some great things for Gnome in the past. But I fear that maybe he like many of us, that have to keep a job, and make compromises, maybe he just needs the paycheck that badly. I can’t think of any other reason for his actions, sorry to say.